My Girfriend thinks Im insane.

[slider]

Me and my girlfriend of 8 years went shopping the other night and I noticed a Japanese couple and their two year old child in one of the isles. I pretended to be interested in some teas that were stacked neatly beside where they were browsing and tried to listen to what they were saying to see if I could understand any of it. It ended up like some crazed stalker following them around the store. I think Im becoming obsessed. :sorry:

Anyone else done anything similiar or am I the only weirdo in this forum.

The girlfriend thought it was hysterical.

[Tim33]

I have to say that i generally do the same kind of thing when i hear people speaking Japanese. Sometimes i just go up and start speaking to them instead though to see what they are like. But i do stalk if i feel uncomfortable speaking.

[RockLee]

Yeah, I like to overhear a conversation too...and try and figure out what they say...a while ago I saw a Japanese couple with their daughter and her mother said something like "you're not serious are you?" to her when she said something about some clothes in the shop...you had to see the look on her face. :blush:

[Inuyasha-the-kid]

http://s11.invisionfree.com/ARPGME/,http://s11.invisionfree.com/ARPGME/

[Ewok85]

I was holidaying with the GF on Kangaroo Island, looking around Little Sahara (http://users.on.net/~tjapple/photo/ki/sahara_pano.jpg), walking back to the car we pass a Japanese family, parents and 2 kids about 10-12yrs old. I listened as they walked past then turned to my GF and said "かわいいなぁ、関西弁をしゃべってる！" and the little girl who was just behind me snapped her head around and gave me a shocked look of "omg did he just speak japanese???" ahahaha :D

[slider]

I was holidaying with the GF on Kangaroo Island, looking around Little Sahara (http://users.on.net/~tjapple/photo/ki/sahara_pano.jpg), walking back to the car we pass a Japanese family, parents and 2 kids about 10-12yrs old. I listened as they walked past then turned to my GF and said "かわいいなぁ、関西弁をしゃべってる！" and the little girl who was just behind me snapped her head around and gave me a shocked look of "omg did he just speak japanese???" ahahaha :D


Brilliant :cool:

I take it thats you in pic number FH050011s.JPG

[Ewok85]

050011S is just a pic from Kyoto... im in http://users.on.net/~tjapple/photo/osaka/FH060009.jpg though :D

[slider]

050011S is just a pic from Kyoto... im in http://users.on.net/~tjapple/photo/osaka/FH060009.jpg though :D

honto desu ka

[Newgi]

:-) I can write JP and pronounciate it well, but ummmm....understanding is ummm :? :souka: ...let's just say I need to study more *praying slider does not notice that I partially understood what he said* :bluush:

[Doc]

Me and my girlfriend of 8 years went shopping the other night and I noticed a Japanese couple and their two year old child in one of the isles. I pretended to be interested in some teas that were stacked neatly beside where they were browsing and tried to listen to what they were saying to see if I could understand any of it. It ended up like some crazed stalker following them around the store. I think Im becoming obsessed. :sorry:

Anyone else done anything similiar or am I the only weirdo in this forum.

The girlfriend thought it was hysterical.

Just don't make it a regular occurance though if I were you. You may end up talking to the police, and from the stories that I've heard on this forum about the police in Japan I would be very careful.

Doc:ramen::happy:

[Tim33]

Haha i only think you will need to worry about that if you do things like follow them home.

Your not doing that are you???

[Ewok85]

Depends, if you follow them wearing full camouflague kit they might pick you up and hold you for the night :D

[slider]

Haha i only think you will need to worry about that if you do things like follow them home.

Your not doing that are you???


LOL !!!! absolutely no !! :relief:

[Anchyyy]

Me and my girlfriend of 8 years went shopping the other night and I noticed a Japanese couple and their two year old child in one of the isles. I pretended to be interested in some teas that were stacked neatly beside where they were browsing and tried to listen to what they were saying to see if I could understand any of it. It ended up like some crazed stalker following them around the store. I think Im becoming obsessed. :sorry:

Anyone else done anything similiar or am I the only weirdo in this forum.

The girlfriend thought it was hysterical.

Heehh! I was playing that 'game' of following people, to see where they go and what they speak about. I am doing it now too with my best friend. :relief: It is really interesting I mean I founded out a lot about that person :-)

[smoke]

Me and my girlfriend of 8 years went shopping the other night and I noticed a Japanese couple and their two year old child in one of the isles. I pretended to be interested in some teas that were stacked neatly beside where they were browsing and tried to listen to what they were saying to see if I could understand any of it. It ended up like some crazed stalker following them around the store. I think Im becoming obsessed. :sorry:

Anyone else done anything similiar or am I the only weirdo in this forum.

The girlfriend thought it was hysterical.
I do find myself fascinated by Japanese people (sorry to be a typical male pig but usually by Japanese ladies!).
I don't listen to try and understand but i 'observe' and check out there style and their behavior.
I also find myself a bit more tolerant of Japanese people (and to be honest, other people from the far east). I don't assume they are likely to cause a problem etc...even though i know that there is good and bad in every culture!

My girlfriend doesn't think i'm insane...just a pervert for looking at all these cute J girls!

[slider]

I do find myself fascinated by Japanese people (sorry to be a typical male pig but usually by Japanese ladies!).
I don't listen to try and understand but i 'observe' and check out there style and their behavior.
I also find myself a bit more tolerant of Japanese people (and to be honest, other people from the far east). I don't assume they are likely to cause a problem etc...even though i know that there is good and bad in every culture!

My girlfriend doesn't think i'm insane...just a pervert for looking at all these cute J girls!


I can relate to that :blush:

[Tsuyoiko]

I did that just this morning! I was sitting in the shopping centre reading a book about Zen that had a lot of Japanese in it. When I saw this Japanese couple coming towards me, I wouldn't have the courage to speak to them, but I thought, I hope they see my book! How sad is that!

:blush:

[Mike Cash]

Cute bunny

[Tsuyoiko]

Cute bunny

Thanks! She likes compliments!

:cute:

[slider]

I did that just this morning! I was sitting in the shopping centre reading a book about Zen that had a lot of Japanese in it. When I saw this Japanese couple coming towards me, I wouldn't have the courage to speak to them, but I thought, I hope they see my book! How sad is that!

:blush:


Not SAD in the least. :-)

[Tim33]

It is very sad, however i have found myself doing the same. I was reading about Japanese religion while sitting on the bus as part as my university project. I saw some japanese people get on so i deliberatly lifted the book up so they would see. I was hoping they would make conversation but they didnt.

[Tsuyoiko]

Same here, they just walked on by...

:(

[Otosan-no-Conan]

My Japanese is horrible, more like Japlish, my wife is not the best teacher...

...so on our vacations to Japan I get to be immersed in the language, when on the trains I will read phonetically all the adds (I taught myself to read hiragana and katakana). My wife gets so embarassed as I sound like someone not well in the head.

I to will eavesdrop on Japanese conversations to see what I can understand. I do ok on the listening but am horrible with speaking.

[Faustianideals]

Me and my girlfriend of 8 years went shopping the other night and I noticed a Japanese couple and their two year old child in one of the isles. I pretended to be interested in some teas that were stacked neatly beside where they were browsing and tried to listen to what they were saying to see if I could understand any of it. It ended up like some crazed stalker following them around the store. I think Im becoming obsessed. :sorry:

Anyone else done anything similiar or am I the only weirdo in this forum.

The girlfriend thought it was hysterical.
I was almost to the point of stalking these japanese exchange students! They were girls, and would have taken it the wrong way, so I didn't really do the stalking part. I mean come on, creepy white guy following you somewhat/ No thxs, I wouldn't enjoy that either! If it were two guys, then sure that'd be acceptable. They could PROBABLY guess why I was "stalking" them. Hahaha, I don't know if you could call it stalking. More like, "hey you're japanese! can I have your autograph"? :souka:

[Ermac]

More like, "hey you're japanese! can I have your autograph"? :souka:

:emblaugh: :giggle: :lol:

Funny man.

[Jack]

:emblaugh: :giggle: :lol:

Funny man.


whats funny about being japanese?

you calling japanese folk funny?

[lexico]

No need to get upset now. It looks like Thor meant some humor, that Ermac went along with, in the contrast

1. Following around the Japanese girls out of curiosity could have been misunderstood as something unfriendly and ill-meant, while

2. doing the same for Japanese guys could also have been misunderstood as something unfriendly until...

3. they are asked for an autograph simply because Thor would have liked to get a little bit of Japanese exposure, the sheer thrill of making contact with people from Japan. Now to ask that in Japanese, and get a genuine response could be a very positive thing !

[Jack]

ahh so, gotcha sorry misread humour, must be the american part of me that didn't find it funny.

[Kara_Nari]

Im more interested in listening into conversations between a native and non-native speaker :D Sometimes im utterly impressed, and other times, I just giggle and think that I can do better.
When I was working in a Japanese hair salon, I was the only non-japanese staff member, and a few of our non-japanese clients spoke really good japanese... The girls would go crazy when they heard it, and be all 'Kara-chan they're better than you ne?"
Funny time on the train once back in NZ... there was a guy that worked on the train, and I think he rather fancied asian women... enough to say 'ooh Nihon jin desu ne?' or 'Hanguk Saram imnikka?' (Are you Korean?)... yeah then he'd try it on the chinese girls too... and so on. I did see him get a few phone numbers out of it all though.
If I was with a korean or a japanese person on the train and chatting away, he would come along and bust his big line.

[f0rk0]

I am guilty myself of chasing Japanese students around the campus.

Thor explained my own situation quite well, only I'm a female, so I can get away with stuff like that. ;-)

It's kind of nice to know there are desperate souls out there who are willing to stalk Japanese people in order to eves drop on their conversation. This makes me feel faaaar less "out there" now.

[Thug]

Awesome stories. :]

[Mars Man]

So, slider, my friend, obviously you are not alone in the world of flowing with the excitement of mingling with those of the nationality you fancy. I hope you can convince your girlfriend with all these great examples. Yes, I have done it too. Only until I moved from Alabama to Arizona (US) there were no giggly 'KOs' ( as in the most common ending of the feminine name) to follow around; and then at the university there in Tucson, I didn't have to 'follow' so much, but just 'party'--now talk about getting two umeboshi in one rice ball, that was it, man!

However, I had more than one national interest--I did follow around, always to strike up a conversation with, people from India. I never thought about it as being strange or 'henjin'-like.

Oh yeah, smoke--you are just the male-minded male, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, no need to apologize. Have eyes, will look--have curves, will follow the road.

[TwistedMac]

I've gone out of my way to sit close to people speaking Japanese on the train just to get to hear some native Japanese. Last time it was an older couple talking about how the Japanese language was being mistreated by youngsters bringing way too much English into it from what little I could gather... rather ironic I thought.

[lexico]

Oh, poor Twisted; that must have hurt !

On topic, I think it's a very healthy thing to follow people around as long as you don't scare them, or they scare you. When I was growing up, the ice-cream car or the mosquito truck would go by, I see a throng of kids following behind for the sheer excitement. They didn't speak any language; just some pied pipe music or a low tone which mice also love, heh. :)

[khammo01]

Hi, this is my first post - I've been living in Japan for about 10 years.

It is actually very difficult to follow a conversation in Japanese if you're joining mid-stream and you don't know what people are talking about.

Japanese is a highly contextual language and the use of subjects and objects is optional. Once a conversation gets going, there are very few clues to help a listener know what is being discussed.

It can take up to a minute or two before I can even figure out what is being discussed sometimes.

For an even more interesting challenge, try listening to one side of a telephone conversation! :-)

[khammo01]

It is very sad, however i have found myself doing the same. I was reading about Japanese religion while sitting on the bus as part as my university project. I saw some japanese people get on so i deliberatly lifted the book up so they would see. I was hoping they would make conversation but they didnt.

It is pretty unusual for Japanese to strike up conversation with strangers. If they did notice your book, they might have whispered among themselves or thought something about it, but it is the rare Japanese who would have the nerve to strike up a conversation. Add to this the risk that they maybe don't speak English well.

Also, was your book in English or Japanese? If English, they probably wouldn't have noticed.

[Silverpoint]

I'd agree with your second point Khammo, but not your first. I don't think it's that difficult to follow a mid-stream Japanese conversation if you speak the language fairly well. No more difficult than English anyway.

I think you're right that it would be very unusual for Japanese to come over and start talking to you just because they see you're reading something in Japanese. Even their native environment they're not always good at doing that. I was in a bar with my fiancee and her sister a few nights ago, and a gaijin guy walked in with something dumb written on his t-shirt (in Japanese). They sat and giggled about it together and then asked me if I'd go over ask him where he bought it because they were too embarassed to approach him directly ;-) And these are two girls who speak excellent English and are very used to dealing with non-Japanese.

On the other hand, I frequently get approached when going out (normally in a bar or restaurant) by a wide range of Japanese (from young girls to old men) who are simply curious to find out a bit about the strange guy sitting near them who clearly "ain't from 'round these parts"

Though perhaps I'm making too much of the Japanese cultural influence. Interestingly, from the comments so far in this thread, people have done stuff like following Japanese around, or trying to conspicuously read a Japanese book etc. hoping that the Japanese person(s) will notice, when in fact it was the poster who really wanted to talk to them, but didn't have the courage to do so. Maybe westerners are just as reluctant to approach Japanese as vice-versa - the evidence from the discussion so far would certainly suggest so.

[djl_ottawa]

we are a race of shy people. Add trying to learn another language and we are even more shy. Almost like we don't want to say something in japanese and get a huge blank look and then have them all laugh at you. :>

But even for the little amount of japanese I know, when my wife and I used to go to the Japanese Embassy (she used to be part of Jet and the alumni commitee) we got invited all the time. I used to strain my ears trying to catch ANY little word I knew. Did not care what the conversation was about. Just as long as I KNEW a word.

[Limonette]

I want to talk to Japanese tourists, they are so mysterious. But find it intimidating, especially when they are hanging around together in large groups. Ah the Japanese tourist - so intriguing and yet so illusive.

I'm not so interested in American Japanese as they seem like everyone else to me, except as individual people like everybody else I guess because I've known so many. I'm sure their background must make them different in some way but I never thought to ask about it before. I also have this thing that I don't want to appear too interested, like I'm obsessed, because I like to see people as individuals first, and then their cultural background second. I think it respects people more to do that, and not make assumptions. Which everyone does to some extent, but anyway... But thinking back I've been influenced by many Japanese Americans on things like gardening, cooking, zen, bonzai, fishkeeping, etc. and liked many. And this has probably finally all sunk in, which is why I'm obsessed now. Sort of. But still somehow the Japanese from Japan seem alot more mysterious to me because maybe 2nd 3rd and 4th generation Japanese have been very Americanized I think.

Also I like the Japanese accent so it makes the foreign Japanese seem more interesting and more mysterious for some reason.

I made friends with an older Japanese woman in a class - we were kind of both outsiders, and we instantly hit it off. I wish we had kept in touch.

There are many people from India here. In fact in India it's called "Little India". They come to work at Microsoft. And I accidentally met some Indians and so that's how I'm into their culture. Also there are asians from all over here, more from everywhere else, Mexicans, African Americans, and a good ethnic mix all around. Whereas it used to be mostly anglo/german/norwegian types and a few minorities. I'm really interested in everyone from everywhere, and if there were 240 hours in a day, maybe I would have time for them all. In fact if that one day that I was sick and bored and nothing on tv, if instead I found a Chinese movie instead of anime, I would probably be in the China forum right now.

It makes it more interesting with all the mix of cultures than how it used to be here. Of course the Japanese have been here for a long time, and that's probably how I discovered their culture I'm sure. I find myself again on a long rambling tangent and I must stop me.

The mosquito truck? Is that to lure the mosquitos out of town?

Oh from now on I'll be sure and bring along my copy of Sun and Steel with the photo of Mishima on the cover so there's no mistake that it's Japanese, lol. Of course it's kinda embarrasing as he's not wearing much on the cover! lol Not that I've actually done that or followed Japanese around yet. Oh dear, is that coming?!

What race of shy people are you from djl ottawa? Canadian? I don't know if they are shy, but they're very nice. I have been known to stalk Canadians, in fact, I was in the Dave Foley Stalkers club, lol.

Shy people can be quite charming sometimes, and if Japanese men are shy like some say, I find it intriguing, however scary, since I'm shy at times myself. Usually not, but sometimes. And so 2 shy people are hard to meet. But it's unpredictable when and if I will be shy or not at any moment.

[djl_ottawa]

Yes I am Canadian :>

Though I am anything but shy. I have been told by friends I am bolder then a bull in a china shop.

But I have met many Japanese people and not all of them are shy, reserved yes. But then again, most of the ones I have met worked at the Japanese Embassy and so they are not exactly shy since they work with the public.

[Ewok85]

Once you get to know Japanese people they are alot less shy and far bolder than most western people (*remembers some mad times in onsens* :| i doubt my friends would have even taken their shirts off never mind kit off and hang out with other naked guys)

[Harvey]

Speaking of onsens, I recently went to a hot-sand onsen in Kagoshima!

Not quite naked, and since you're buried in sand you can't really move around... but.. still interesting.

I wrote about it on www.japannewbie.com with pics. Check it out.

And yeah. I think that most people who learn Japanese really are insane.

[Limonette]

Your posts put a new light on the shyness thing in Japan. I can relate because sometimes I am reserved or reticent myself, and people think I'm shy, when I'm just not inclined to talk. But it's usually very outgoing people that think that about me, I guess they expect people to talk as much as them. And sometimes I am shy. But usually I talk alot as you can probably tell. So maybe I will fit in in Japan. However you're kind of scaring me about going to the onsen Ewok LOL. (just imagining what "mad times at the onsen" might consist of. (good title for a movie I think) It seems like fun tho.

I did see the film Tokyo Girls, and there was this Japanese guy barking like a dog, and I thought, that doesn't seem like a shy guy to me! It's interesting to hear about the stereotypes and then I'm amused by those that break the stereotypes. And I'm also surprised when I see stereotypes in action, because I assume people won't be like the stereotype. So no matter what I'm always surprised, and I like that. If that makes sense.

Thanks for sharing your onsen experience, Harvey. I enjoyed that. I didn't know there was sandy onsens.

Oh what was this thread about? I forget!